Sex With Bugs Raises STD Awareness

Here's an ad that might cause second thoughts before jumping into bed with your hottie of choice. This French ad for an AIDS group hopes to shock the public out of complacency regarding sexually transmitted diseases. We think it works.

Mischa Barton Chills With Keds

In May, we announced Keds had extended its deal with Mischa Barton and would be launching a campaign featuring The O.C. actress Mischa Barton. Recently, the shoe company launched a website, Mischa Barton Fall '05, created by Toth and mediumbold, featuring Mischa and her involvement in the creation of the campaign, her take on the definition of cool, behind the scenes commentary on the photo shoots for the campaign, Mischa's answers to fan mail, her take on Hollywood hot spots, her favorites songs and, of course, the shoes.

The campaign's tagline is "Be Cool" and the word cool must be uttered by Mischa at least one hundred times throughout her appearances in the site's mini-videos. Not a bad choice for a tagline considering how many times people say "cool" in every day conversation. It's akin to Verizon's "Can you hear me now?" tag which, as anyone who owns a cell phone knows, is said more than a few times every day.

Dove Gives Fat...Uh...Real Women Their Day

OK, OK, OK. We'll write about this. You've twisted our arm long enough. While we thought we were done with this, having written about it back in March 2005, the Dove fat girls are, again, all the rage. Having popped up on billboards all over the country, the public has voiced its opinion on the campaign by writing on the ads comments such as "I hate my agent," "Fat girls can be corporate schills too" and "I only suck form balls." We're not quite sure what the last comment has to do with the campaign but we're sure the author had something in mind.

Sharpie pen commentary aside, the campaign does make one wonder if we really want to see "real" women in their underwear or stay with the anorexic, cleavage-enhanced, Photoshopped, untouchable, pore-less, fantasy hotties that adorn most current advertising.

Agency Uses 'Creative Juices' In Promotional Campaign

Vancouver agency smashLAB has out their creative juices, somewhat literally, to use in a new self-promotional campaign. The print campaign, with the tagline, "Our Creative Comes From Within," features images of colorful body fluids from puke to snot to well, view the campaign to see the other two. We're not quite sure what kind of clients a campaign like this will attract but, hey, more power to smashLAB for trying.

Shocker: Boobs Promote Advertising Week

In an ironic twist, the industry that is currently attempting to regain cred among, well, everyone, the advertising industry recently launched an ad campaign to promote Advertising Week using the oldest trick in the book: sex. Created by DDB Worldwide, the ad, which promotes the industry's upcoming Advertising Week in September pictures a faceless woman with in a red bra and black top with her breasts bulging outward and the copy, "Advertising. We All Do It," positioned directly beneath the woman's cleavage.

Predictably, many are up in arms over the ad citing it as sexist, moronic and tired. All true but, then again, when has sex ever been in danger of not selling something. Whether it's to titalate guys or to piss of women, sex-laced campaigns featuring scantily clad women whose breasts are spilling forth, uncontrollably, from of their tops unquestionably draw attention and get the media to write about it, thereby, accomplishing a campaigns primary goal of awareness despite negative reaction.

Indicative of the spineless nature of industry, neither the client nor the agency are stepping up to the plate in reaction to this ad with both sides referring inquiries to the other as if the ad were a pair of skid-marked underwear.

Bring sanity back to the saga, Bartle Bogle Hegarty Global Chief Marketing Officer and Director of Advertising Week Cindy Gallop told Ad Age, "I see the campaign as funny and entertaining. Advertising is something we all do without thinking. The fact is a woman opening an extra button on her blouse for a date is a very regular occurrence." You go, Cindy!

Campaign Helps Parents Remove Sex and Violence From Children's Lives

In a campaign created for child protection group, Pauseparentplay, and created by LA-based David & Goliath, parents are offered advice on how to protect their children from sex and violence saturated media using already existing tools such as television's V-chip, parent-focused movie and television review services, music review services and video game review services.

The campaign, which promotes the ParentPausePlay website, is done up with tab rag headlines such as "Suburban Mom Wipes Out Army of Bloodthirsty Ninja Assassins...with eject button on DVD player," "Parents Thwart Flesh-Eating Cyborgs...from invading their children's game console" and "Small Town Dad Disarms Chainsaw Wielding Psychopath...with skillful use of the remote.

Currently, the campaign is appearing in magazines with future plans for television. Councilman Vallone would love this campaign.

HBO Launches Latin American Campaign

HBO has launched a new campaign in Latin America with the tagline "Si no fuera por HBO, no escaparíamos de la rutina (If it weren't for HBO, we would not escape from routine). The campaign, which consists of five (three of which can be viewed here, here and here) spots, shows a series of individuals having a bad day (a visit from auditors, a difficult legal case, a traffic ticket) but when they think of HBO, they realize life isn't so bad and there's always a way to get out of the routine.

The background music for the campaign is the David Bowie song "Heroes" which gets all aspirational. The spots are beautifully shot and, while HBO is certainly not going to solve all life's problems, the campaign does a nice job making a connection between powerful things that happen on the screen and powerful things that can happen in life.

The campaign was created by which worked with Trebejos Films. Future efforts along this vein are planned for the remainder of 2005 and into 2006.

Ryanair References London Bombing in Ad Campaign

UK-based Ryanair, last Friday, ran an ad that referenced the recent London bombings to promote low fares. The ad appeared in UK newspapers last week with the headline, "London Fights Back," an image of Winston Churchill and a speech bubble that contained an alteration of a famous June 1940 speech and read, " "We shall fly them to the beaches, we shall fly them to the hills, we shall fly them to London!" The Advertising Standards Authority received more than 100 complaints regarding the ad but Ryanair has refused to pull the ad.

Ryanair Head of Communication Peter Sherrard explained the move telling the Guardian, "We are trying to ensure that the terrorists don't succeed in paralyzing people with fear, which is their primary objective, and that people continue to lead their lives as normal and continue to fly."

Gwyneth Paltrow Becomes Bean Pole Spokemodel

While many might say blond hottie Gwenyth Paltrow needs no more association with the term bean pole as she, and all other Hollywood actresses, are skinny enough as it is. But, then again, when does a Hollywood starlet display rock solid common sense? While that may a bit too much over analyzation of the situation, Gwenyth has decided to become the spokesmodel for Bean Pole, a Korean fashion brand under the wing of Samsung. Bean Pole hopes Gwenyth's popularity will help make the brand a hit in the States. Recently, Paltrow also signed with Estee Lauder to face for its pleasures line.

GAP Picks Michelle Williams As New Spokesmodel

Doing a search on Google, one might conclude the GAP should have chosen Michelle Williams, the Dawson's Creek star instead of Michelle Williams, the Destiny's Child singer for their new spokesmodel. While the GAP has acknowledged its intentions to use several celebs in succession for its ad campaigns, after just a few months of Joss Stone, one might conclude the GAP is suffering a seriously fickle case of ADD.